Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Offshore energy for Maryland?

An article in the Sun today describes the positive conclusion of research commissioned to investigate the potential of off-shore wind energy production for Maryland. Our state has a goal of generating 20% of our total energy from renewable sources, and this looks like a great way to do it. Interestingly I don't see any mention of costs: instead, the research touts the number of jobs the project would bring. While that's undoubtedly true enough, someone has to pay those people's salaries, and that task would fall to the customers of BG&E, I assume. Renewables are worth paying a premium but I'd like to see more in this article about how efficient this source is rather than simply whether or not the project is technically feasible. Still, kind of cool to think that windmills offshore might generate a large share of our state's power, and not too far in the future, either! We'll see what happens.